THE DELEGATION WILL ASSESS THE COUNTRY’S NEEDS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE RELIEF.

A Saint Lucian delegation left the island on Thursday, Sep 21, to provide much needed assistance to the Commonwealth of Dominica, ravaged by the Category 5 Hurricane Maria earlier this week.

Among the delegation which traveled aboard the Defender are police officers, and fire and rescue officers.

Minister for Home Affairs, Justice and National Security, Sen. Hon. Hermangild Francis, said while in Dominica the police will be supplementing the efforts of their law enforcement counterparts.

“We have some firemen as well who will be assisting with rescue work, we also have people from NEMO who will be going there to assess the damages to make recommendations to the acting prime minister on what the needs of Dominica are. We don’t just want to send things and at the end of the day we are duplicating what other countries have done. We want to assess what they actually need, what requests they are making of us, and act accordingly.”

Initial reports from Dominica indicate that 100 percent of the country has been impacted and over 56,000 people affected. There was also significant damage to the housing stock.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), has activated a regional response. The Rapid Needs Assessment Team was deployed to the affected island on Wednesday, while the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit, the CARICOM Disaster Assessment and Coordination team, and the CARICOM Operational Support Team are all on standby.

Monitoring Amateur Radio communications to capture information from the Amateur Radio Association in Dominica continues.